The Patriot looks into trends among teenagers’ usage of alcohol, marijuana, electronic cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco, or dip.

Click the image to view The Patriot In-Depth.

Trends among teenagers regarding the use of alcohol, electronic cigarettes, smokeless tobacco (dip), and marijuana have evolved over the years. However, the popularity in use among students both at JC and nationwide illustrates just how much students are exposed to these substances.

“I think [drinking] is selective, like only a few people really do it,” senior Gabby Kropff said. “It really depends on who you hang out with. I think it’s pretty selective.”

According to a survey sent out by The Patriot via surveymonkey on Oct. 31, between alcohol, marijuana, dip, and cigarettes, students are exposed to alcohol the most. Between school, parties, restaurants, and stores, alcohol is seen the most.

Between these places, 25 percent of students see it once a week, 16 percent see it once a month, and 12 percent see it once a day. 10 percent of students rarely see alcohol.

“There is no pressure to use alcohol,” senior Micaela Powers said. “It’s usually something that just so happens to be at parties. People who want to drink do, and people who don’t won’t.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), alcohol is the most commonly abused drug among youth in America. People aged 11-20 drink 11 percent of the alcohol consumed in the United States.

In 2011, a Youth Risk Behavior Survey issued by the CDC reported that, in the last 30 days, 39 percent of high school students drank some amount of alcohol and 22 percent binged.

“Kids today drink to get drunk which is not what you’re supposed to do. They go in with a mind set ‘hey let’s get drunk’ which is immature,” sophomore Zachary Miller. More than 90 percent of high school alcohol consumption is in the form of binge drinking, according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

The Patriot survey found that 70 percent of students believe that alcohol is the most used substance by teenagers.

After alcohol, cigarettes are seen the second most often. According to The Patriot Survey, 13 percent of students see them once a week between school, parties, restaurants, and stores. 14 percent see them once a month, and 3 percent see them once a day. Only 15 percent of students rarely see cigarettes.

However, in The Patriot survey, only two percent of students believe that cigarettes are used most often by teenagers.

“A lot of people have grandparents that died because of cigarettes, and I think that gives it a bad taste,” Powers said. “They definitely are not as popular as they once were.”

This decline in student smoking can be attributed to an increase in action by the media against smoking. “Truth” is a campaign that works to end smoking. By airing advertisements on MTV, the campaign hopes that it can arm smokers and non-smokers with the tools to make change.

According to the CDC, 36 percent of students smoked in 1997. However, in 2011, this number was cut in half, with only 18 percent of students smoking.

Smokeless tobacco, commonly referred to as dip or dipping tobacco, is also a trend among teenagers.

“Dip is just one big group,” Kropff said. “They do it and it’s specific to just that singular group.”

In The Patriot survey, nine percent of students see dip being used once a week, three percent see it once a day, and four percent see it once a month. The survey also found that 12 percent of students rarely see dip.

Nearly 55 percent of students also said that they have seen a decrease in the usage of dip among teenagers in the last few years.

According to the CDC, six percent of high schoolers used dip. Dip is used by 11 percent of male teenagers and one percent of female users. However, since 2005, the use of smokeless tobacco has been increasing in high school males but declining in high school females.

Only four percent of students who answered The Patriot survey thought that dip was used most often by teenagers.

According to The Patriot survey, seven percent of students see marijuana once a week, two percent see it once a day, and 10 percent see it once a month. Of the responses, 21 percent of students rarely see marijuana.

“I think alcohol and marijuana both have evolved most. [Alcohol and marijuana] have become increasingly easier for minors to obtain” Miller said.

However, 45 percent of students agreed that marijuana has increased in popularity among teenagers in the last few years.

“I don’t really see anything but I think marijuana has become more prominent over the years,” freshman Katie Brinugar said.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH) in the Monitoring the Future survey, between 18 and 23 percent of high schoolers had used marijuana within a month of the survey. In addition, the use of marijuana among teenagers has increased since 2009.

With the recent discussion of medical marijuana and the growing perception of marijuana as a safe drug, the perceived risk has declined and the use of marijuana has increased.

Although all of these substances are seen by a percentage of students, The Patriot survey found that the majority of students reported never seeing any of them, and, with the exception of alcohol, it was usually an overwhelming majority.

35 percent of students never see alcohol, 57 percent never see electronic cigarettes, 61 percent never see marijuana, and 71 percent never see dip.

“[People who drink] make mistakes, but it doesn’t define them,” sophomore Julianna Richard said. “I don’t know a lot of people who drink, but there are groups who probably do it together but there are also individuals who do it just to do it.”

Whereas some substances are going out of fashion, others are emerging. According to the NIH, fewer teenagers smoke cigarettes than marijuana, which was evident in The Patriot survey.

While there are students who partake in using alcohol, electronic cigarettes, marijuana, and dip, the majority of students do not use them in excess.

Billy Jump is an In-Depth Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com